Medic Alert

Chances are you haven't heard of Correctional Medical Services. When the Minnesota Department of Corrections quietly inked a deal with the private firm in July to provide inmate medical care at prisons throughout the state, the agreement prompted nary a peep from the press. Based in St. Louis, Mo., Correctional Medical Services (CMS) is the leader in the burgeoning prison health-care industry, operating more than 340 sites in 30 states and pulling in more than $400 million per year. According to the DoC, Minnesota's three-year contract with CMS is worth in excess of $8 million annually and is expected to reap yearly savings of $2 million.

Though you might think such a cost-cutting accomplishment would be worthy of headlines, it went virtually unnoticed here. But outside Minnesota, CMS has been drawing a great deal of attention recently. In fact, even as the ink on the state's contract was drying, a team of investigative reporters at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch was putting the finishing touches on a massive story about inmate health care. The 12-page special report, published Sunday, September 27 (and available on the Internet at www.stlnet.com/postnet/news/prisoncare.nsf), revealed a system that is troubled at best, criminally negligent at worst: At least 20 inmates have died in the nation's prisons as a result of negligence, indifference, or cost-cutting techniques, the Post-Dispatch reporters found, and the courts are flooded with scores of medical-malpractice lawsuits filed by inmates.

At the center of the controversy: CMS.

Shannon Brady

Among the dozen or so incidents cited in the Post's piece was the February 1996 death of an 18-year-old inmate in an Alabama correctional facility. Calvin Moore, who had a history of mental illness, lost 50 pounds in less than a month under CMS's care and died as a result of dehydration and starvation just a few weeks into his two-year sentence for burglary. Three years earlier at another CMS facility, the Post reported, four inmates died after a nurse put the wrong chemicals in a kidney dialysis machine. And in May 1995 an inmate being treated by a CMS physician feigned paralysis, escaped, and murdered a man while free, according to the story.

The Post also documented cases in which the company has hired doctors with dubious pasts. The article described the case of Dr. Gail Williams, a former Michigan physician who had his license revoked in 1985 after engaging in sexual acts with a psychiatric patient and falsely billing the insurance company for the "treatment." Williams received a restricted license that permitted him to practice in prisons or other supervised settings and was hired in 1990 as head of mental services for the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. That license was revoked three years later, when Williams was accused of sexually battering and harassing a nurse and other female staffers. The women won a civil sex-harassment suit against the state's corrections department. CMS hired Williams in 1994 and helped expedite his licensing in the state of Alabama.

Yet another incident cited in the Post-Dispatch story involved Dr. Walter Mauney, a CMS medical director from 1995 to 1997. When Mauney was involved in a wrongful-death lawsuit, attorneys discovered that he had given "misleading statements" on his CMS job application: In reference to a 1979 conviction, Mauney claimed he'd been charged by a Tennessee grand jury for having consensual sex with an 18-year-old male (the age of consent was 19), when the actual charges involved "oral and penetrating" sex with a 16-year-old "mentally defective" boy.

In all, CMS acknowledged to the Post-Dispatch that more than 500 lawsuits are pending against the company, 29 of them involving inmate deaths. CMS also confirmed having paid out more than $4.1 million in indemnity claims between 1981 and 1994. (While this boils down to just $300,000 per year, actuarial tables place far less value on an inmate's life than that of an average citizen.)

Prison officials in Minnesota say they're well aware of CMS's record in and out of the courtroom, and they're confident in the company's ability to run a safe and efficient operation. That's why the company's bid was chosen from among proposals submitted by 58 firms. "I can't comment on the Missouri system," says Carol Sheehan, director of health services for the DoC, "but I can tell you that when we checked CMS's references, the state [of Missouri] and others are very pleased with them." (CMS officials initially consented to an interview for this story, but they failed to follow through with the scheduled interview. Subsequent calls to reschedule were not returned.)

In the past, state employees provided direct nursing care and mental-health and dental services for prisoners in Minnesota, while primary medical care--routine examinations, first aid, the dispensing of over-the-counter medications, etc.--was administered by independent contractors. Any inmate who required inpatient care was sent to Regions Hospital in St. Paul. That system, Sheehan and other DoC officials say, proved both inefficient and costly, earning Minnesota the No. 2 ranking in the nation for prison health-care costs. "At $10.90 we have the second-highest health per diem in the country," she says. Annually, Minnesota spends between $9 million and $10 million on its health-care contracts, Sheehan explains, adding that those figures don't include costs for transporting prisoners to off-site care or staffing clinics in the prisons. "The only state whose inmate medical costs are higher is Alaska," she says.